Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said he advised President Obama against taking up health care reform following a special election in 2010 that changed Democrats’ fortunes in the Senate, saying that he should have instead turned his focus to financial reform.

Frank referenced former President Bill Clinton and his failed health care plan from the 1990s. “Obama made the same mistake Clinton made,” Frank said in a wide-ranging interview with New York magazine. “When you try to extend health care to people who don’t have it, people who have it and are on the whole satisfied with it get nervous.”

The outgoing representative from Massachusetts added that after Republican Scott Brown won former Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s seat, breaking Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority, Obama should have backed down: “I think we paid a terrible price for health care. I would not have pushed it as hard. As a matter of fact, after Scott Brown won, I suggested going back. I would have started with financial reform but certainly not health care,” Frank said.

Ya think? What a crock of shit. The problem wasn’t just with how democrats went about screwing all Americans by passing & straddling us this monstrosity. The LSM and the left have done a good job at covering up all the nasty and dirty bits. How often do we hear about all the bribes and back room deals, again at the tax payer’s expense, that where needed to buy off enough democrats to go along with this horrible piece of legislation? And don’t you dare remember how we were told we had to pass it to see what was in it too! Or about the fact that a bunch of leftist twits convinced themselves that it was constitutional for the government to force Americans to buy something they wanted and are now acting like a spoiled child that was told no dessert before they eat their broccoli.

Then there is the massive list of special interest with exclusions. No, I am not talking about either our political class or their union friends that automatically got exemptions so they could keep their plush coverage. I am talking about the people that had to bribe or pay off democrat politicians, I mean make their case for the exclusion, right, in order to avoid the consequences of this disastrous policy, which not only will damage quality and access to healthcare for most Americans, but is constructed in such a manner that it not only is dependant on unconstitutional mandates to force citizens to pay for it, but is assured to fail. And I think that failure isn’t seen as a bad thing by the left, but a feature – a way for them to guarantee that they get the single payer system they would otherwise never get people to go along with in this country. More too big too fail in action.

Now you have tools like Frank complaining about how the left should have focused on the economy. Finally an admission that from the top down this was never, ever a priority with these assholes, despite their claims to the contrary. The proof is in the legislation they passed. Things like Obamacare and the stimulus

That’s why we have a lost economic decade - if we are so lucky I should add, because if we do not end the crap that these leftists are doing it will be even longer - where most Americans that produce wealth, lost out, as massive quantities of wealth was simply destroyed. Yeah, blame Bush. But the fact is that it was neither our leaders during the Bush era acting like liberals when spending, nor the wars we were forced to fight, and certainly not the bullshit about how tax cuts deprived poor government of it’s money as the insane and stupid envy mongers push, but the culmination of insane leftists social engineering policies finally coming up on reality and crashing & burning, that started the economic problems. What followed, the insane government spending and the growth of the nanny state, is what exacerbated it, and all but guaranteed us a long period of pain.

The only people that made out in the age of Obamanomics are the free loaders and the politicians that gain power by buying their votes with tax payer money. And we remain constantly assailed with more ridiculous and divisive class envy politics, intended to distract people from the reality of how disastrous the massive deficit spending and policies of the last 3 years have been, as Obama and the democrats remains focused on meaningless policies like the Buffet rule, free contraceptives, and racialist nonsense to distract the average Joe. I have no doubt that neither Obama nor the democrats can run on their “accomplishments”, that’s in quotes because most of us sane people consider the things we got from Team Blue to be unmitigated disasters: hence the circus atmosphere the LSM is helping them get away with.

Barney, you are offering too little too late. Likely because you are pissed you had to give up your lucrative deal milking the tax payers for all it was worth. Obamacare wasn’t the only thing the left fucked up on, although it certainly is the biggest of them, when you all dropped the ball on the economy. Then again, I am not sure what you think that you leftists would have done to better the economy. Stimulus Part Deux wasn’t going to fix anything, and I can not think that people that believe all solutions and answers come from government, and only government, would have done anything that would have helped the economy, either in the short or long term, in any way or form. And that’s what people need to remain focused on.

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a prominent 16-term liberal Democrat from Massachusetts and arch-enemy of political conservatives nationwide, will announce Monday he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012, according to a statement from his office.

Frank, 71, will hold a news conference in his district to discuss the decision at 1 p.m. ET.

The reasons for Frank’s largely unexpected decision to retire from Congress were not immediately clear, though some analysts speculated they may be tied to changed boundaries for his 4th Congressional District after Massachusetts’ recent redistricting process.

Translation: he didn’t want to fight for a district that wasn’t gerrymandered.

There are some nice things I could say about Frank. Uh … he has fought against the stupid internet gambling ban. Um … help me out here guys.

And that’s because they think they profit from that failure. Barney Frank, he who with another crook, Chris Dodd, was instrumental in the last housing market collapse, and, whom i remind you all demanded to “fix it”, and thus, have set us up for an even bigger one in the near future, admits that the super committee, that many like me have pointed out was set up from the start to fail by the left, failing, was good for democrats.

The question begs to be asked: “Why does it always feel like every time democrats “win” anything, that the country loses big?” This committee was set up to fail from the start because the left wants both to destroy the military and, at a minimum, keep the current spending levels. After all, it has allowed them to steer trillions of dollars to their base, lobbying community, friends, chosen businesses, and of course, campaign coffers, and they know that without all that money they would end up dead.

I am referring to the conversation I had in the comment section of one or more of our OWS posts here about who we really need to be angry at and blame for our current disastrous situation. When I pointed out that these OWS people where barking at the wrong people and that they and most Americans needed to understand who the real culprits and enablers in this mess are, because they where basically asking the culprits, motivated by the power & money they got making the system dependant on them for favors, I was talking about this. In fact, I specifically mentioned this asshole as one of the biggest perps.

Rep. Barney Frank might sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, but he’s still got friends in the financial world. The Massachusetts Democrat is heading to New York hoping to raise tens of thousands of dollars Thursday at a fundraiser at the home of Charles Myers, a senior investment banking advisor at Evercore Partners.

Myers is one of several Wall Street execs listed on the invite soliciting up to $2,500 from attendees for Frank’s reelection committee, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO. Frank, the co-author of the sweeping financial regulatory reform bill signed into law last year, said in a recent interview with POLITICO that he didn’t see any conflict between supporting the protests and taking financial services money.

So there you have it. I am against evil Wall Street but I am there raking in their cash! Barney’s Defense?

“If you take money from them, but you don’t vote [for] the things they want, how does that put you in conflict?” Frank questioned.

Fuck, he thinks we are stupid! WTF do you think the Dodd-Frank bill did, huh? And remember that Barney was a huge supporter & enabler of the TARP bank bailouts. Maybe Barney misspoke when he said that he doesn’t vote for the things they want and really meant that even when he gives them the things they want, they end up doing bad. Seriously, does he really want us to believe that these Wall Street execs are too stupid to figure out, after decades of paying big money for Barney’s time, that they are getting nothing, and that they just keep doing it out of desperation or some other motive? And this is the guy you think will fix things for ya? Hah!

Want another laugher?

Frank said he supports the movement “to the extent that they obey the law” and that he wishes “that kind of energy was around two years ago when we were voting on the financial reform bill. We’d have a tougher bill.”

Hah! Obey the law? That’s one huge understatement. I know the LSM has done a bang up job of not reporting how much trouble the various authorities have had with practically every one of the hippy infested OWS groups. Maybe what Barney really means is that he wants to co-opt the energy of these astroturffed events to hold on to that seat that allows him to bend so many people over.

Guess who so far has ended up being the biggest beneficiary of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law? For those of you not familiar with Dodd and Frank, here is some background. Chris Dodd was a senator from my state, Connecticut, and one of the instrumental people behind the previous laws and government push to force lending to high risk people in his political career, ending up as the banking committee chairman (better to rob us blind!) right at the time the crisis happened. His meddling, in the name of “social justice”, but always while larding his friends and donors with government largesse, made him an instrumental player in setting the stage for the practices that led to first the housing and the following economic collapse back in 2007/2008. Dodd also was the guy that put regulation in the “must have” bailout plan to protect the big wigs and their bonuses at AIG. He was mired in one scandal after another, and basically decided not run for reelection in 2010, opting instead IMO to go steal people’s money doing something else.

Barney Frank, is a representative from Massachusetts. In addition to having the distinction as the only congress critter that dated a guy that run gay prostitution ring from their shared residence, he was also the head architect behind the scandalous and criminal repackaging of high risk loans, to make them palatable, through the government owned and run, but mysteriously categorized as private sector entities, Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae, and a key player in protecting Freddie & Fannie from any serious scrutiny – another one of his lovers was put in charge of running one of those – by accusing those pointing out the problem of being racists, until the whole house of cards came tumbling down.

As a reward for their roles in the horrible crisis and economic collapse it cause, these two where allowed, well they demanded, to be given the reigns of power, to produce the new series of regulations which they told us would prevent another crisis like the one their previous involvement caused. As expected, they didn’t do anything to end either the idiotic practice of having governments force lending institutions to give loans to high risk people looking for a loan, or to address the massive problems at Freddie/Fannie, but created a slew of regulation in a bill with over 2300 pages of bullshit, designed to allow people in government to increase their ability and power to pick which businesses would be winners and whom the losers. In return for some large donations, of course. So, don’t be surprised that the clock is already ticking on the next economic implosion, courtesy these two morons.

It may not prevent another bailout or protect consumers from dangerous financial products, but the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law — now one year old — has already benefited one group of people: the government officials who wrote and implemented the law before cashing out as lobbyists or consultants for Wall Street, hedge funds and big banks.
The top staff lawyers in charge of crafting the legislation in both chambers of Congress have both left Capitol Hill for K Street, as has a Securities and Exchange Commission staffer who helped implement the law. This is “private-sector job creation, Obama-style,” as blogger Ira Stoll drolly notes.

The Great Wall Street Cashout is another example of how President Obama’s agenda of bigger government — and congressional Democrats’ style of leaving the key details up to executive-branch regulators — accelerates the revolving door and breeds crony capitalism.

Dodd-Frank was supposed to prevent future bailouts, tamp down on excessive risk taking by financial institutions and, through a new agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, protect regular people from predatory lenders or harmful and complex financial products.

SAY IT AIN’T SO!

Seriously. Why is this news? It’s of the “Dog bites man” variety. The very regulators engaged in writing this piece of garbage leave government, become lobbyists, and then rake in the cash? Who would have thunk that!

I can’t blame these guys for pulling this stunt, but I certainly can go off on the next leftist asshole that tells me how evil capitalism or Wall Street is. These government scumbags and their games make those guys look like pikers. Remember, Wall Street, or for that matter any other business/economic power center, can only do the things people in government write laws to make them do. We got more of the same in the healthcare takeover by government bill too. If we really wanted to curtail these kinds of bad practices, what we should have done is removed the power from government, by removing as much involvement by them from the equation. Instead we did exactly the opposite. Go figure.

As I said in the comments on Alex’s post, I’m not too opposed to the double standard that gets applied to sex scandals. Republicans get hit harder because of the hypocrisy of dictating moral values to the nation when it comes to homosexuality and abortion while they schtupp lobbyists on the side.

But I do object to the failure to call out Democrats when they engage in hypocrisy that makes David Vitter look like Pope Benedict. The Democrats bombard us with an endless stream of propaganda about how they stand up for the little guy, they stand up to special interests, they oppose big money. And they do this while selling the country down the river to those exact interests. One week they are standing up to big insurance companies by pushing healthcare reform the insurance companies love. The next, they’re standing up to energy interests by lavishing money on “green” technology pushed by powerful energy interests. You can read Alex’s post below on the debacle unfolding at Fannie and Freddie, the liberal creation that was tangled up with every monied interest around and zealously defended against re-regulation by Democrats.

And then there’s Dodd-Frank, the bill that was supposed to stick it to the big banks in favor of the little guy. This is the bill that’s going to make Elizabeth Warren everyone’s second wife, constantly nagging us about our financial choices. This is the bill that was named after two men so covered in bank lobby money, their shit comes out in coin sleeves.

So how’s that bill working out? We’ve passed it, so now we can find out what’s in it.

Dodd-Frank is so sprawling — the legislation runs to more than 2,000 pages — that the law firm Morrison & Foerster dubbed the tracker it created to monitor the implementation process “FrankNDodd.”

The law laid out principles but often left it to regulators to write the actual rules. Those would be the same regulatory agencies that failed to prevent the financial crisis and that, in some cases, view the banks they oversee, not taxpayers, as their primary constituents.

Dodd-Frank requires 387 different rules from 20 different regulatory agencies. The Byzantine, tedious rulemaking process has occasionally pitted regulator against regulator and proved a bonanza for lobbyists.

…

Congress set aggressive deadlines for regulators to make rules to enforce the law, and, unsurprisingly, they are failing to meet them. The agencies missed each of the 26 deadlines they were supposed to meet for April. So far, regulators have finalized 24 rules and missed deadlines on 28, according to the law firm Davis Polk.

This is not an accident. This is not the creation of evil Republican deregulators. That the rule-making is coming to be controlled by special interests is exactly what we fucking predicted would happen.

What did we expect? Between Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley, we are getting to the point here he only way to make money is to control the politicians and the regulators. Anyone else gets screwed. They only other choice is to take your business to less stupid countries.

Well, we all know this is the fault of the evil Republicans. Certainly the Democrats don’t … oh.

Every morning, a Wall Street trade group called SIFMA sends out an email with the day’s news. SIFMA is the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. It represents banks and trading firms. So it’s no surprise that the email is usually heavy with critical news stories about financial reform laws, like the Dodd-Frank Act.

But tonight, SIFMA will be hosting a fundraising dinner for Democratic Congressman Barney Frank: yes, he’s the Frank in Dodd-Frank. SIFMA members will pay $1,000 or more for a seat at the table.

The Wall Street interests are also big Obama contributors.

This needs to be drilled into people’s heads: the rich and the powerful love hyper-regulation. They love it. They love it because they have the money and the influence to successfully navigate a politically-controlled landscape. All that over-regulation accomplishes is the screwing over of newcomers — those who don’t have influence yet and haven’t stuffed political war chests with their hard-earned money. The guys who brought down our financial system love Barney Frank and they love Dodd-Frank because they are protected; they have the keys to the vault (literally, in the case of bailouts).

And the politicians love it too. How else would a turd like Barney Frank get his bloated ass kissed by rich bankers? How else would Obama roll up $35,000 donations? They love having people come to Washington and genuflect before them. They love having the success of businesses and the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars turn on their whims and whimsies. This is what they live for.

The only people who lose are the average citizen, the honest businesses, the economy and the sucker lefties who continues to mindlessly support these weasels and their weasely reforms.

(CNSNews.com) – The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the real cost of the federal government guaranteeing the business of failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is $317 billion — not the $130 billion normally claimed by the Obama administration.

That’s more than double the real risk/cost that they told us was involved here. Remember that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac where the key instruments of the idiotic policy that forced lenders to give loans to bad risk, then guaranteed those risk at the tax payer’s expense, and pushed for the regulations to create the disastrous credit swap scheme. Neither organization, nor their role in causing this recession, was addressed by all the new regulation passed by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, two of the key players behind the policies that allowed the shenanigans to go on. We already poured millions into these two to bail them out, and we might not be done at all, since Bloomberg predicted that the actual bailout amount for this disaster might even top a trillion dollars back when: a number I wouldn’t be surprised ends up being the low end. But back to the article in question.

In a report delivered to the House Budget Committee on June 2, the CBO said a “fair value” accounting of guaranteeing the two defunct mortgage companies – known as Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) – was more than twice as high as the Office of Management and Budget had accounted for.

“Specifically, CBO treats the mortgages guaranteed each year by the two GSEs as new guarantee obligations of the federal government,” the CBO report said. “For those guarantees, CBO’s projections of budget outlays equal the estimated federal subsidies inherent in the commitments at the time they are made.”

“In contrast, the Administration’s Office of Management and Budget continues to treat Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as nongovernmental entities for budgetary purposes, and thus outside the budget,” the report stated. “It records as outlays the amount of the net cash payments provided by the Treasury to the GSEs.”

The total of those cash payments is $130 billion, and is normally reported as the cost of the bailout of the GSEs to date. However, the CBO said that merely counting the cash payments, and not the cost of federal subsidies granted to the GSEs, obscures their real costs. Essentially, the CBO is accounting for the cost of the federal government guaranteeing the loans bought and securitized by the GSEs.

What this says in short is that the Keynesians have purposefully underestimated the debt they have straddled us tax payers with, because while they claim Freddie & Fannie are non governmental agencies, we the tax payers still are on the hook for their risk taking ventures, which I must again stress, remain untouched and ongoing. But don’t take my word for it: here is the CNS article:

Currently, Fannie and Freddie rely on explicit federal guarantees to continue to secure below-market financing rates. Because Fannie and Freddie are insolvent, the federal government must make up their losses when the loans they have guaranteed lose money in default.

However, the CBO counts not only the amount of federal funds spent to keep the GSEs operating but the cost to the federal government to subsidize the mortgage guarantees issued by Fannie and Freddie. In other words, the CBO counts as a federal spending commitment the subsidy given by the government to the GSEs.

And the CBO has to count that in, because our government, well we the tax payers, are responsible for those risky loans. And it gets better:

However, this subsidy cost could grow if the housing market continues to be weak. While the CBO expects it to recover, the difference between the agency’s own 2009 and 2011 estimates show that this may not be the case.

We haven’t heard the true numbers yet. Me, I wouldn’t e surprised that in the end it is closer to a trillion dollars of risky loans that will need to be written off and paid for by the tax payers, because in my personal experience the number of people that never should have been given a loan far surpasses those of us that didn’t buy more than we could afford, or worse, promptly took out 125% or more of the value of the homes they owned out to do other frivolous things.